


I wanted to fix this, but couldn't stop from tearing it down

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:52:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Karen has to go into protective services and has to say goodbye to Matt. He kisses her goodbye (his way of finally telling her his feelings) and she leaves, heart broken that she couldn’t tell him she loved him too. After no contact for an entire year, she finds one of their secret messages written in the frost on her window and goes outside to find him there, arms open for a hug as he tells her that she is allowed to come home and asks her if she’ll live with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I wanted to fix this, but couldn't stop from tearing it down

For a brief second, Karen thinks that she’s been shot when she hears gunfire on the empty London streets. 

Except the only thing that’s bleeding on her is her wrist from where she scraped it when she ducked down to avoid the machine gun bullets suddenly whizzing past her. (Was this London or Kabul? Suddenly she was far less sure.) 

She lies on the ground, shaking and sobbing until the police come and pick her up and take her to the station. There are a couple of bodies that she sees being zipped in to body bags, and she breathes a sigh of relief because she’s alive. 

The relief doesn’t last long though. She doesn’t understand why they can’t let her out of the police station, and she feels like a criminal, all bundled up in a room with what was probably a two-way mirror. 

Finally, a detective comes in and speaks to her, and everything comes crashing down. 

“You witnessed a Russian Mob hit,” he said. “We need to put you in to witness protection.” 

“Why?” she says, and now she’s thinking about the moving and the identity change and all the reasons why she would really like to keep her life as it is. “I didn’t even see the shooters!” 

“But they saw you, and they know that you’re alive, and they will come and get you. A police car will escort you back to where you’re living so that you can pack your things. You’re allowed to tell your family and friends that you have to go, but not where you’re going. You have 24 hours to put everything together.” 

A police officer escorts her to the small flat she’s rented in London while she films her latest series, and she immediately begins calling people. 

Matt shows up a few hours later, completely out of the blue, and it takes a lot of cajoling to get the officer posted on her door to allow him in, which he finally does. As soon as he’s in her flat, he wraps his arms around her and she cries in to his shoulder. 

“Why do you have to go?” he says, sitting on her couch and watching her running about trying to stuff things in to suitcases.

“They think I’m at risk because apparently, the Russian mob knows that I’m still alive and they’ll try and tie up loose ends. I hope it won’t be forever.” 

“Me too,” Matt says. 

She eventually convinces him to help her pack, and he does. She sleeps for a little, curled up around him on her couch like in the old days, and he holds her hands as she deals with emotional phone calls to her parents and Caitlin. 

The officer outside gives her the five minute warning, and she looks back on her empty flat and sighs. 

“Kaz, there’s something I have to tell you,” Matt says with trepidation in his  voice. 

“What?” 

“I love you,” rushes out of his mouth, and tears start streaming down her face. 

“Why now?” she half-yells, half-sobs, “Why not years ago? Why now when I may never see you again?” 

“Because I’m an idiot,” Matt says, tears in his eyes, “but it did have to be said.” 

She nodded, and then grabbed him by the shirt collar and kissed him. Matt was never one for doing things halfway, so he bit her bottom lip and then slid his tongue in to her mouth when she moaned. Her hands played with the hair at the nape of his neck while his slipped under her t-shirt  and stroked the soft skin of her lower back.

When they pulled apart, he doesn’t say anything, just helps bring her suitcases down the stairs to the waiting unmarked police car. He kisses her on the forehead, and she whispers in his ear, “Raggedy man, goodbye.” 

She cries for the whole time she’s in the car.

* * *

Karen gets given new ID - she’s now Andrea Stevens from Chichester, living with her mother (in reality an undercover police officer) in Machynlleth, Wales. She’s also forced to dye her hair - a bit heartbreaking, but she’s always wondered what she would look like as a brunette. She gets glasses, but they’re fake, and when she goes around town, people note a strong resemblance to that Pond girl from Doctor Who, but no one positively identifies her as Amy.

That’s a bit of a relief, because she instinctively finds herself looking over her shoulder everywhere she goes. 

She works as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. She makes a few friends, but never actually feels that close to them, because she hasn’t been able to let go of Karen. The police officer playing her mother tells her to, but she’s utterly unsuccessful in doing so, and just ends up lonely a lot of the time. 

She keeps track of what her friends from her former life are up to. Arthur and Sophie get married, and she cries when she sees the wedding photos because practically everyone she cares about is there. Jenna and Richard break up. Caitlin ends up getting more roles on TV shows, and she watches her a lot and wishes that she could be around. Since no one was apprised of what was going to happen, the internet has several theories about her disappearance, ranging from a nervous breakdown to an unplanned pregnancy to death.

Eventually, though, it calms down. She’s pretty sure everyone’s forgotten about her. 

It hurts her to see Matt, and she cries a little whenever she and her handler watch  _Doctor Who,_ and sometimes she watches the interviews he does, and she can tell that all the light’s gone out of his eyes. He remembers her, he still loves her, and that gives her hope on the dark days. 

She just wishes that she could be there to help him and make him smile again. 

* * *

It’s a year that she’s in witness protection, but it feels like forever, and by the end, she’s dragging her feet and she thinks that she’s going to die prematurely because of all the stress and mental anguish that she was going through trying to build a new life. 

But, in the middle of the snowiest March Wales had ever seen, she gets a call from London that changes her life - they caught the contract killer and the people responsible for the original shooting, and so, she would be safe back at home. 

She could go back to her previous life, and the thought exhausts her and fills her with joy. 

“Go call your mother,” her handler says, and so Karen does, and goes through an entire box of tissues for that phone call. 

It will take a few months for them to make a graceful exit - put the house up for sale, and let Karen give her bosses notice. She starts to let the red in her hair grow back, and that makes her happy because she’s starting to get back to her. 

Once she gets back her full ginger, she takes pictures for her new (old?) IDs, and starts thinking about difficult questions, like where she’s going to live (probably back in Inverness) and what she’s going to do with her life (probably audition for more shows and shock the world with her sudden reappearance). 

On her first day without work, she comes down in the morning and sees something written in the frost on the window. 

noomecaf olleh

What? 

She stares at it for a while before thinking to read it backwards, as if someone had written it outside without thinking of the person reading on the inside. 

hello moonface 

There’s only one person who calls her moonface, and suddenly her pulse starts to race a little and she grabs her jacket and goes outside - 

And there’s Matt, standing on her front lawn smiling as wide as she’s ever seen him smile. 

She lets out a something between a sob and a yell and then runs to him, tears streaming down her face, and leaps in to his arms. He hugs her so tight that she can barely breathe, but what she does breathe in is his scent  and it reminds her of home and hope and things that have been so distant for the past twelve months. 

They break the hug off for a few seconds and just stare at each other, and she can see the desperation and exhaustion in his eyes, and then he’s kissing her again, like he did a year ago, except instead of being about sadness and the fact that his confession of love came just as they were about to be parted, it was about hope for the future and about how they suddenly had all of the time in the world together.  

They pull apart, but he wraps her up in a hug again, and says, “Your mother cannot keep a secret. At least you didn’t tell her while the mafia was after you.”  

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s cold out. Can I show you inside?” 

He nods, and she grabs his hand and leads him inside, and lets him get out of his heavy clothes and gets him a cup of tea. 

“How was Arthur’s wedding?” she asks as she brings the mugs over to the table. 

“Great,” he says. “Different without you. We all really missed you, Kaz. How did you know that happened?” 

“Internet,” Karen says. “I’ve been keeping up with you all that way. Sort of.”

“Caitlin’s becoming quite a star, I see.”

Karen nods and smiles. “It’s good to see there’s one sort-of-Gillan in showbiz.”  

“Can’t get rid of you crazy gingers,” Matt says, gently grabbing one of her hands and running his thumb over her knuckles. “Must be something in the water up in Scotland.” 

They sit in silence for a while, Matt gently stroking her hand and both of them sipping their tea. 

“What are you going to do now, Kaz?” he asks. 

She shrugs. “I guess I’ll make some fabulous reappearance and then try and do acting and stuff again. Or I’ll become a medical receptionist again, because apparently I’m pretty good at that.” 

“Do you have a place to live?”

“Back in Inverness, I guess. It might be good to get home.” 

“I was wondering,” Matt says somewhat tentatively, “if you’d like to come live with me in London? I get that everything’s in flux right now, and I am happy to come back and forth to Inverness if that’s what you want. But I’ve got a wonderful couch and an extra wardrobe if that’s what you’d rather do.” 

“Yeah, that would sound nice, except I’m not sleeping on your couch,” Karen says, laughing and shaking her head. 

“I would sleep on the couch,” Matt says. 

“Or we could both sleep in your bed.” 

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Yeah, that would be best of all.”

“Do you still feel the same way you did a year ago?” Karen asked, looking at him hopefully. 

“Would I have greeted you with a kiss if I didn’t?” Matt says. “I love you, Karen Gillan, I always will, and I will wait forever if I need to.” 

“You don’t have to,” Karen says. “No more waiting. Not anymore. I love you, Matt.” 

He stays with her for the last week she’s in Wales, and then helps her with her suitcases once again, except now he’s taking her back to his flat and getting her set up there. 

Her hair gets back to its original bright red, she manages to step pretty much back in to her real life, and she’s got Matt, so everything’s pretty much perfect. 


End file.
